Chi Chun-Wei, Lao Yeh-Hsing, Ahmed A H Rezwanuddin, Benoy Elizabeth C, Li Chenghai, Dereli-Korkut Zeynep, Fu Bingmei M, Leong Kam W, Wang Sihong
Department of Biomedical Engineering, CUNY- The City College of New York, New York, NY, 10031, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA.
Adv Healthc Mater. 2020 Nov;9(21):e2000880. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202000880. Epub 2020 Sep 23.
Drug screening in oncology, especially for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), has high demand but remains unsatisfactory. Currently available models are either nonrepresentative of the complex tumor microenvironment or only suitable for low throughput screening, resulting in a low-yield success for drug development. To tackle these issues, the L-TumorChip system is developed in this study. It is a three-layered microfluidic tumor-on-a-chip platform integrating tumor microvasculature and tumor-stromal microenvironment with high throughput screening capability. Its layered and modular design is readily scalable through simple integration of multiple units. Here, L-TumorChip is validated with a TNBC model. The L-TumorChip system emulates certain tumor-stroma complexities and tumor-endothelium interactions, including TNBC invasion through the leaky microvasculature and angiogenesis. Additionally, with this L-TumorChip, the influence of different stromal cells, including normal fibroblasts, mesenchymal stem cells, and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF), on cancer cell growth as well as the stromal effects on drug responses to doxorubicin treatment is investigated. The presence of CAF delays drug pharmacokinetics, while apoptotic responses indicated by caspase-3 activities are higher in coculture with normal fibroblasts. Collectively, the L-TumorChip system represents a translational high-throughput screening toolkit that enables drug screening with a scenario closer to the in vivo conditions. This potential use may therefore facilitate development of new cancer drugs.
肿瘤学中的药物筛选,尤其是针对三阴性乳腺癌(TNBC)的药物筛选,需求很高但仍不尽人意。目前可用的模型要么无法代表复杂的肿瘤微环境,要么仅适用于低通量筛选,导致药物开发的成功率较低。为了解决这些问题,本研究开发了L-TumorChip系统。它是一个三层微流控芯片肿瘤平台,集成了肿瘤微脉管系统和肿瘤基质微环境,具有高通量筛选能力。其分层和模块化设计通过简单整合多个单元即可轻松扩展。在此,L-TumorChip通过一个TNBC模型进行了验证。L-TumorChip系统模拟了某些肿瘤-基质复杂性和肿瘤-内皮细胞相互作用,包括TNBC通过渗漏的微脉管系统的侵袭和血管生成。此外,利用这个L-TumorChip,研究了不同基质细胞,包括正常成纤维细胞、间充质干细胞和癌症相关成纤维细胞(CAF)对癌细胞生长的影响,以及基质对阿霉素治疗药物反应的影响。CAF的存在会延迟药物的药代动力学,而与正常成纤维细胞共培养时,由caspase-3活性指示的凋亡反应更高。总体而言,L-TumorChip系统代表了一种转化型高通量筛选工具包,能够在更接近体内条件的情况下进行药物筛选。因此,这种潜在用途可能会促进新型抗癌药物的开发。